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3232Return of the Droneshttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/04/11/return-of-the-drones/
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:44:04 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2374Check out the damn-near perfect sailing conditions at the start of the 2016 Patos Island race at SNSYC. Flat water, maybe 6 knots of breeze with positive tide to make it feel like more and keep the VMG up over 5 knots for pretty much everybody on leg 1. Watch closely and you’ll see eventual race winner Mischief (Ross Macdonald and Eric Jespersen) absolutely launched off the start line. Results are here: http://www.snsyc.ca/Racing/race_results.aspx

Warning: if you are one of these, “I’m done with the rat race in Vancouver, I want to move to the island” types, this video will not help.

]]>Drone warshttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/04/11/drone-wars/
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 20:36:04 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2369A couple of new videos that popped out today. Up first, Southern Straits. Yes this is 2016, as indicated by the rather slow speeds, not 1988 as indicated by some of the video production!

Before Southern Straits this year I was asked to present at a “Tech Talk” at West Vancouver Yacht Club entitled “How to win this race”. So having spent a fair bit of time in March thinking about all the rules of thumb when sailing up and down the Strait of Georgia, I was feeling pretty good about tactics come race day.

For this race I usually sail double-handed on the Express 37 Manana, on the medium course. This year I was back on that program, on the medium course to Sister’s Island and back. A mixed bag of weather awaited us.

At the start gun, we were off on a tight spinnaker reach in a Southerly. This got us just about to Pt Atkinson before it fizzled out and we were into upwind sails. In my presentation I said, “Step out from the start line, find the ebb current, and ride it straight to Pt Atkinson.” What we did instead was to start to leeward of the pack, painfully work our way to the south of the fleet by Pt Atkinson, and watch the X-119 Dominatrix do exactly what I had said, and sail right around us near the point. Score: Common Sense: 1 Manana: 0

From there it was a tricky beat across the mouth of Howe Sound up towards Gibsons. A few boats were well out toward Pt Grey by this time and were sailing a lot of negative miles out towards Porlier pass. Sticking to our game plan and working up past Gibsons toward Sechelt, while not getting too close to shore, really paid here and as we passed Shoal Channel we had re-passed Dominatrix, reeled in the J/109 Diva and had the leading 1D35 The Shadow clearly in our sights.

And then the wind died. When it came back we had the beginnings of the forecast South Easterly. Spinnakers up we all pointed roughly towards Nanaimo and tried to keep the boats going 3 knots or better. A great duel lasted a few hours before the next big split in the fleet. A few miles off the island shore, and with dark approaching quickly, the eventual winners Time Bandit, Diva, and also M Power went hard for the beach. The Shadow and Manana stayed out by 3 or 4 miles, and another pack went for the North. Now I must go back to my Tech Talk; “No, I would not go inside Ballenas Islands – almost guaranteed to be less wind there”. As we approached Ballenas we were finally running in a good 10 knots of breeze. Also, sailing with just two of us, we were getting tired. The line we were on took us straight inside Ballenas, we didn’t want to jibe, and we convinced ourselves there was going to be wind in there, so in we went. It all looked good until we dropped down to 6 knots of wind. By the time we exited back into the middle of the Strait we were pointed mostly at Sisters, Dominatix had passed us again by miles on the Northern route, and we had lost all contact with the front of our fleet.

With one foot still left to shoot off, we deviated from plan again and sailed a long jibe all the way to the Lasqueti shore, where we found another hole. I must say, watching Fortissimo sail past us really sharpened us up for the rest of the race. The bleeding must stop! In two tidy jibes we reversed that pass and got headed for home. Half done.

In my presentation we talked quite a bit about how last year’s winner went to the North, all down the Sechelt coast, and how that was a weird anomaly, you’d never do that. So I am not that surprised in retrospect that dawn found Manana and Dominatrix dueling across the tip of Merry Island, watching Fortissimo cross miles ahead of us to the south. Face — palm. For us on Manana, this was the moment where the tactical options closed down and the need for speed set in. We got our focus on, and ground down first Dominatrix, then Mojo, and then set to work on Fortissimo. We tacked our way down the north side of the strait, working out to the middle when we could to de-leverage the competition, and heading back to shore when the VMC number started to approach zero. By Cowan point we were back into 3rd in our division and roughly abeam of Fortissimo, although about a mile further out in the Strait. We almost had it.

For the last 5 miles or so the ebb tide was running strong and the wind began to shift back to the west or maybe southwest. Kites went up, and we all had a real boat race on our hands. The boats lined up with the middle of English Bay had the most breeze, the boats in Howe Sound had the least distance, and the boats out in the straight seemed to be struggling to line themselves up with anything. In the end Fortissimo could not be caught, and our division fell in line (miles behind the J/109 Diva) and took the 2-3-4 positions on the medium course. The J/120 Time Bandit won our course decisively, and they certainly deserved it. Keeping a J/120 moving fast in 4 knots of wind for 30 hours is no small task.

In the end, a 14:30 finish is about the latest I’ve recorded in Southern Straits, but it was surprisingly not miserable at all. I won’t call it warm, but the sun was out, the wind always came back eventually, and pretty much everything we think we know about this race course came true. If only we’d listened to ourselves!

]]>Winter Racing in Vancouver Winds Down with a Whimperhttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/03/11/winter-racing-in-vancouver-winds-down-with-a-whimper/
Fri, 11 Mar 2016 22:00:28 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2355A great winter season of racing in Vancouver ended on an awkward note this year. Both series ran into trouble recently with complicated courses leading to a certain amount of ‘interpretation’ by the racers.

In English Bay, the VRC Polar Bear’s penultimate race was a ‘twice around the bay’ affair, that appeared to require the fleet to round the RC boat to commence the second lap. Or not. Confusion took over and a number of boats omitted a mark or two. A week later the protests have been heard, a few different solutions were proposed, and as of today the race stands as it was scored in the first place. Indications are that this is not final yet. In any case, the four divisions are led by Andy Allan’s big Beneteau 45f5 Electre, Supreme-Leader Ben Rummen’s Hotfoot 31 Thursday’s Child, Wade Harrogate’s C&C 30 Silik, and Ed Estabrook’s Ericson 27 Salus. One race left to go on March 13 and it looks like Div’s 1,2, and 4 are still very much up for grabs.

The next week over in Howe Sound, WVYC’s final Snowflake race suffered a similar fate. A clockwise tour of Vancouver harbour using all port roundings sparked at least 3 or 4 different interpretations. Winning boats in divisions 1 and 2 rounded either 1 or 2 of the 3 marks of the course. Protests flew, redress was requested and (so far) denied. Finally, the RC elected to abandon the race. It turned out that a couple of judge’s interpreted the course to be correctly completed by anyone who started, turned clockwise, and crossed the finish line immediately. All the rest of the sailing around the bay was apparently just for fun. A few of the selected courses are shown below, plucked from one redress filing. This left the results from February as the series results, and they show a rather tight series. Div 1 is tied between Peter McCarthy’s 1D35 The Shadow and Rich Alban’s Farr 30 Spiny Norman. The tie breaker goes to the Shadow, but would have gone the other way if the final race counted. Same in Div 2 where Jason Vandergaag’s Schock 35 Excalibur wins the tie breaker with Matt Wagstaffe’s M24 Sawlty, who also would have taken the title in the final race. A mess you say? Division 3 was much more straightforward with Jamie Van Poole’s Yamaha 35 Radiant winning nearly every race.

WVYC course below, in several versions. Note that all three leave all marks ‘to port’…

]]>New U.S. Customs Procedures for Canadian Boatshttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/02/19/new-u-s-customs-procedures-for-canadian-boats/
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 18:15:42 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2352Beginning in 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has new procedures in place for for Canadian vessels visiting the United States. Canadian vessels are no longer required to purchase a U.S. Customs user fee decal. Instead, they must purchase a cruising license. Cruising licenses are valid for one year.

Here is the press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Office of Field Operations announces new procedures that are coming to the inspection process for foreign flagged private boats. These procedures will be in addition to the reporting process currently in place. All operators of pleasure boats must report to CBP immediately upon arriving into the United States from a foreign port, place or location; or if they had contact with another vessel outside the U.S.; or if they have received merchandise outside the U.S. territorial waters. Foreign flagged pleasure boats must also make a formal vessel entry on CBP form 1300 within 48 hours after making their immigration entry at a port of entry and pay applicable fees. At the time of entry boaters may request a cruising license from the applicable CBP port director.

“The cruising license will greatly facilitate multiple entries during the year and avoid additional fees for boaters,” said Bellingham Port Director Diana Sandoval.

A cruising license may be available to boats departing from Canada and arriving in the Puget Sound area. A cruising license may exempt foreign flagged pleasure boats (from certain countries) from having to undergo formal CBP entrance and clearance procedures, except at the first CBP port of entry each and every year. Cruising licenses are normally valid for one year.

The operator of a foreign flagged or undocumented foreign pleasure boat without a valid U.S. cruising license must obtain CBP clearance before leaving a port, place or location in the U.S. to depart foreign or must obtain a permit-to-proceed if traveling to another port, place or location within the U.S.

The master, or operator of a foreign flagged boat not traveling under a cruising license will be required to file a formal entry and clearance each time they enter the United States, file the appropriate paperwork, and pay the applicable fees.

Foreign flagged boats traveling under a cruising license would not be required to purchase a CBP decal, which is currently $27.50, for the year.

For questions, please contact the Small Boat Reporting Line at 1-800-562-5943.

]]>Changes to PHRF BC – But what does it all mean?http://cascadiasailor.com/2016/02/16/changes-to-phrf-bc-but-what-does-it-all-mean/
Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:26:14 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2344This January PHRF BC held a seemingly innocuous referendum on changes to their spinnaker protocols. Having received a strong ‘yes’ vote, they are apparently now moving forward with implementing the changes. So what was it all about?

The changes themselves came in two major forms. First is measurement. Previously PHRF BC was measuring about 5 widths on Asymmetrical spinnakers, but only one width on Symmetricals. Because there is always an element of assumption in the shapes of the sails, this system was producing “measured” sail areas that were larger for symmetricals, and smaller for asymmetricals, for a given amount of nylon. The differences were in the 3-5% range.

This was not a desirable situation, so the new formula uses the exact same measurement protocol no matter the shape of your spinnaker. As such the system is much more fair across different types of boats and sail plans. But this led to another interesting situation; namely, PHRF BC was now half way to having the same system for spinnakers as their neighbours at PHRF NW. So, for a small effort, this gap could be closed up in one fell swoop. And it was!

The second changes then, were in the adjustments. The definition of a “standard” sail has shrunk slightly, and at the same time the range of sail areas you can have with no penalty has grown – this is known as the code band. Boats that were designed originally with oversized spinnakers (spinnakers taller than the forestay and/or wider than 1.8 times the foretriangle) will now be rated on that configuration, instead of trying to force them into a box based on what we all considered “standard” back in the days of short shorts on men, white zinc lips, and Line 7 plastic foulies.

All this means, once PHRF BC takes a run through their database, that the adjustment codes for spinnaker sizes will match up for every boat from roughly Portland OR up to, well, wherever the ice bergs start up north. We’re not sure how much racing happens north of Port Hardy, but we hope there is some!

Now we wouldn’t want to speculate out of hand, but through last fall and this winter there has been a groundswell of support from sailors across BC and Washington to have our two PHRF organizations get together and line up the ratings. Both for the good of the events, who have to deal with two sets of certificates, and for the sailors who have to pay for them. A Facebook group has started up, and various website forums have hosted discussions. .. Is it just maybe possible that PHRF BC made these changes in response to the requests of it’s constituents? And is this all part of a greater plan to move the groups on to the same page? It seems there is hope.

Where is it all going – it reminds us of the the Underpants Gnomes from South Park back in the day. We now know the first phase – get the measurements to match up. We know the last phase – Profit (OK, in this case, Participation!). We are looking forward to phase 2.

]]>Safety at Sea Update – Round Patos Islandhttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/02/08/safety-at-sea-update-round-patos-island/
Mon, 08 Feb 2016 20:56:28 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2341SNSYC has announced that Safety at Sea qualifications are no longer a requirement for participation in Round Patos race this March 18-19. They are still recommended of course. So now you have really no excuse left not to take part in this epic race.

https://patosislandrace.com/

]]>Safety at Sea gets real for Southern Straitshttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/01/28/safety-at-sea-gets-real-for-southern-straits/
Thu, 28 Jan 2016 19:21:00 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2336Owners and crews were caught out earlier this year when pretty much all the local overnight races suddenly required a minimum of two crew members to have current Safety at Sea certificates. The excellent Safety at Sea courses provided by BC Sailing and US Sailing have been recommended for the last few years for these races. Most who have taken the course enjoyed them and we haven’t heard a bad review yet.

However, in the context of a requirement for participation, a number of competitors were left questioning how much of these $320 dollar offshore-oriented courses was really applicable to the inshore races we do in the Strait of Georgia or Puget Sound. Life raft entry and egress is all well and good, but we don’t carry rafts in most of our races!

Enter West Vancouver Yacht Club, stepping up with a quick solution. Special half-day SAS courses will be available in March, in time for Southern Straits and focusing on what really matters to most of us. The half day seminar topics include a review of required safety equipment, preparing heavy weather sails, obtaining and interpreting local weather forecasts, hypothermia and cold water immersion, man overboard, emergency signals and communications. Seminar cost is a way-reasonable $95.

Everyone involved should be commended for the speed that this was put together, and even more so for the simple act of listening to the participants; all too rare in sport in general and sailing in particular!

]]>2016 Melges 24 Canadian Nationals – Start your engineshttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/01/21/2016-melges-24-canadian-nationals-start-your-engines/
Thu, 21 Jan 2016 21:56:01 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2274With still 6 months to go the Melges 24 Canadian Nationals, hosted by Kelowna YC, has already racked up over 25 entries. That’s already an excellent number for a Canadian regatta, and more than the number of local boats in BC. This is shaping up to be a great regatta. Get signed up, or get in touch with the fleet through their website – apparently there are still some charters to be had. http://melges24nationals.ca/

]]>Get schooledhttp://cascadiasailor.com/2016/01/20/get-schooled/
Wed, 20 Jan 2016 19:18:53 +0000http://cascadiasailor.com/?p=2259North Sails has announced that they are holding their excellent North U boatspeed seminars in our neck of the woods in February. Bill Gladstone presents at the Kitsilano Yacht Club in Vancouver, and Andrew Kerr is at the Seattle Yacht Club, both on Sunday, Feb 28, 2016. Check out www.northu.com for details or to register.